Episode 28 | The Men In My Barracks 🪖 (Patreon)

All characters depicted in this story are fictional and 18 years of age or older. Everything portrayed is safe, sane, and consensual.

Episode 28: The Space Between Us

The days stretched longer than they should have.

I kept waiting for the old rhythm to return, for Ryder’s hands to find me the way they used to without thinking. Instead the pattern settled into something quieter and harder to read. He was still there. He still called me wifey sometimes, but the word landed differently now, softer around the edges and sharper underneath. He still stood close during formation. He still laughed at Ramirez’s worse jokes. But the automatic reach for me had thinned. The way he used to drop his hand over my shoulder without asking, lean in close enough that I could smell the sweat and musk on his skin and the faint trace of cigarette on his breath, the way that simple contact used to make me smile before I even realized I was doing it — all of that was starting to fade.

When I shifted nearer at night he allowed it for a moment and then eased back.

“I’m sleepy tonight, baby,” he said, voice low and calm. Then he climbed back up to his own bunk and left me staring at the underside of the mattress.

I told myself it was temporary. I told myself I was imagining the distance the same way I had tried to imagine it away a week ago. The explanations were getting harder to believe.

During training I watched him more than I meant to. The way he moved. The way his eyes found me and then moved on. Ashford’s gaze found me too, more than once, long enough to feel like both a reminder and a warning. He never called me over. The look alone was enough to make my stomach tighten. I was looking at the same two men I had been looking at since the day I stepped off the bus. One of them had already fucked me in the dark of his private quarters, thick and slow and possessive. The other was the man I cared about, the one I had started to love in the middle of all this mess, and he was the one slowly stepping just far enough away that I could feel the space every time I reached for him.

Julian started appearing in the spaces between us.

I saw them outside after evening chow one night, sharing a cigarette near the edge of the field. Ryder’s hand rested on Julian’s shoulder while they talked, easy and familiar. The way they stood together, the rhythm of the conversation, the open smile on Ryder’s face — it was the same easy closeness he used to give me without thinking. Something sharp and unwanted moved through my chest. I looked away before either of them noticed me watching. I didn’t even walk over to join them. Lately it had started to feel like they would stop talking the moment I got close. Julian was my friend. Ryder was my lover. It hurt more coming from him.

Later I asked myself what right I had to feel jealous when I had spent a night in another man’s bed only days before. The answer didn’t make the feeling disappear.

The almosts began to pile up.

One evening in the supply closet, the kissing turned deep and wet the way it always had. My hands slid under Ryder’s shirt. His knee pressed between mine. When I reached for his belt he caught my wrist gently and rested his forehead against mine. A small grin pulled at the corner of his mouth.

“Baby… what’s the hurry?” he asked, voice low and almost playful. “What if someone walks in?”

“I wanna suck my husband’s cock,” I said against his mouth, trying to keep the moment light even while the want sat heavy in my gut.

Ryder made a quiet sound that was almost a laugh. “I know. I know. But I saw Alistair walking outside with his little gang just before we came in here. Bad timing.”

He kissed me again, slower this time, like he was giving me something and taking it away in the same breath. The old Ryder wouldn’t have cared about Alistair or anyone else. I fixed my clothes with hands that weren’t entirely steady and followed him back out into the corridor. There was no sign of Alistair or his goons anywhere. The want of Ryder’s body, his touch, the simple intimacy of being wanted by him, sat heavy and unfinished under my skin.

Another night, I tried to initiate again in the dark of the barracks after lights out. A quiet hand on his arm. A shift closer on the narrow mattress. He kissed me, slow and real, then pulled back with the same calm tone.

“We need to get some sleep, baby. Early drills tomorrow.”

I lay awake a long time after that, listening to his even breathing above me and trying not to count how many times the answer had been some version of ‘not now.’

Julian found me alone near the water station two days later. His voice was careful.

“Is everything okay between you and Ryder?”

I kept my eyes on the bottle in my hands. “Yeah. Why?”

“Just asking.” He hesitated. “You both seem… different.”

“We’re fine.”

The lie came out smooth. I didn’t want anyone else to know that the once inseparable husband and wife were now carrying some quiet relationship drama I still didn’t fully understand. Julian just nodded and didn’t push for more. The concern in his face stayed with me longer than the question itself.

That night I decided to go to Ashford.

The look he had given me earlier when he walked past the chow line had been clear enough. He was expecting me. Or maybe I was simply missing the warmth, the sex, the physical certainty of being wanted without having to ask twice. Ryder had been pulling back for days. Ashford still looked at me like he already knew I would come.

I waited until the barracks had gone still, then sat up and reached for my boots. The residual ache from the last time he fucked me — the night Ryder had first denied me — was still there, low and familiar. I needed the sharpness of it once again. I needed something that didn’t feel like it was slipping away.

Before I could stand, Ryder’s voice came from the top bunk, quiet and clear in the dark.

“Can’t sleep, baby?”

I froze with one boot in my hand.

He dropped down from the bunk above without waiting for an answer, already pulling a shirt over his head.

“I’ll give my wifey some company.”

We left the barracks together. I couldn’t say no. What was I supposed to tell him? That I was going to meet another man because my husband wouldn’t fuck me?

The compound was dark and cool. Our boots made soft sounds on the packed ground.

I didn’t have a destination. Ryder didn’t ask for one. We walked the long way around the edge of the field, past the darkened training areas, far enough that the NCO building sat in the distance like a low shape against the sky. My eyes drifted toward it once. I forced them forward again. Ryder gave no sign that he had noticed the glance.

We talked about nothing that mattered. The next day’s march. A stupid story Ramirez had told at chow. The weather. The conversation sat on top of everything we weren’t saying. At one point we stopped near the fence line. The air smelled like dust and night. I shifted closer.

Ryder allowed a brief touch, the brush of his fingers against mine, a quiet kiss that tasted like the cigarette he had shared with Julian earlier that day. Then he eased back.

“We should head in,” he said. The reason was calm. Almost casual.

I followed him back to the barracks with the want still sitting unfinished in my body. That night I didn’t go to Ashford. I lay in my bunk staring upward, thinking about the easy way Ryder’s hand had rested on Julian’s shoulder that morning, about the taste of the cigarette on his mouth during the kiss, and about the fact that I had no clean right to the jealousy that kept rising in my chest.

The days kept stretching.

I started watching the small signs the way I imagined Ryder was watching me. How he stood when Ashford was near. How his attention moved. How the physical closeness that used to be automatic now required a decision. The bond between us was still there. I could feel it every time he looked at me too long or used the old word in the new tone. But it no longer came free.

On the fifth or sixth night the signal finally came again.

Ryder nodded toward the supply building after evening free time. The same small tilt of his head he had always used. Relief hit me so hard I almost smiled. Something light and stupid fluttered under my ribs, the way it used to when things between us were still simple. I followed him without hesitation. The door shut behind us with a soft click. For a moment the dim space felt like it might give me back what had been thinning for days.

“Come here, baby,” he said.

His mouth found mine immediately. The kiss was hungry and familiar. I made a low sound against his lips and leaned in hard, hands sliding under his shirt, almost desperate for the contact I had been denied.

“Mhm, Ryder…”

“Yeah, wifey,” he murmured against my mouth, and kissed me deeper.

His hands settled on my waist. When he pushed my pants down and turned me toward the shelves I went willingly, smiling like an idiot, like someone who had been waiting too long for something simple.

He pressed the thick head of his cock against me and pushed inside slowly.

The stretch pulled a small whimper out of me before I could stop it. I was still sore from the night I had spent in Ashford’s bed earlier in the week. Ryder froze for half a second, then eased the pace at once.

“Don’t worry, baby,” he murmured against the side of my neck. “I know you must be sore. I’ll fuck you nice and slow.”

He kept his word.

The thrusts were measured and deep, more careful than they had been in a long time. Wet sounds filled the small space between our bodies. His breath stayed warm against my skin. Every time his mouth came near my neck the way it used to — the place he liked to kiss and scrape his teeth — he stopped himself short and turned the touch into something softer. Every few thrusts he checked in, voice low and steady.

“Yeah? This okay?”“Tell me if it’s too much.”

I nodded, forehead pressed to my arm, and pushed back to meet him. The soreness faded under the heat of being filled by him again. His hands stayed firm on my hips, holding me in place while he moved.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Nice and loose. Opening up for me.”

A longer thrust. The wet sound of it.

“Been fingering yourself open?”

The question landed soft and precise. Guilt flared under the pleasure. I shook my head against my arm and forced a cockier edge into my voice.

“Only for you, baby.”

He made a low sound that might have been acceptance and kept the same controlled rhythm. His mouth brushed the side of my neck again, the place that still carried the memory of other teeth.

“You still my wifey?” he asked, quieter this time. The word landed heavier than usual. “Mine?”

The words were almost gentle. They still cut. I answered in the moment because the alternative was silence.

“Yeah, Ryder. I’m yours, baby.”

He fucked me like that until the heat built past the point of control. When I came it was with his name half-swallowed against my wrist. He followed a few strokes later, buried deep, breath harsh against my shoulder. For a long moment neither of us moved. It felt like everything that had been missing, the space that had opened between us, had closed again.

Then he turned my face and kissed me, slow and thorough. The post-sex kiss was different from the ones I was used to. It almost felt like he was holding back. The Ryder I knew would have eaten my mouth and refused to let me come up for air. He would have been all over me. Now the kisses were measured. When he pulled back he studied me in the low light.

“All good, Callum?” he asked, quiet playfulness not quite hiding the edge. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

He must have seen the want on my face. I forced something that passed for a normal answer. We fixed our clothes in silence and left the closet one after the other. The connection was still there. The sex had proved that. But the kiss afterward had already told a different story. It no longer felt simple.

That night I slept in fragments, replaying the careful way he had held himself back even while he was inside me.

The next day carried the same thin tension. Julian’s quiet concern still sat in the back of my mind. The sight of Ryder laughing at something Julian said near the water station landed harder than it should have. Ashford’s gaze found me across the field and held long enough to feel intentional. I kept moving through the hours with the effort of holding both sides starting to show in how carefully I answered and how often I watched the spaces between people.

Evening free time came the way it always did. I needed clean towels from the supply area. I walked the familiar corridor without thinking much about it, already half-distracted by the leftover ache in my body and the quieter ache sitting under my ribs. My hand pushed the door open.

The light inside was low.

A man stood near the far shelves with his back mostly turned toward the door. Another figure was in front of him, lower, the angle of the body clear even in the dim light. The other man was on his knees. The private shape of the moment was obvious before my mind caught up enough to name it.

Then the standing man shifted his weight and the light caught the familiar line of his shoulders and the messy brown hair.

Ryder.

The name left my mouth in a quiet, stunned breath.

“Ryder?”

He looked over. The man on his knees leaned just far enough to the side that I saw the face. Julian. Flustered. The same quiet, almost innocent expression he always wore, except now there was something secret sitting behind his eyes.

Silence filled the small room.

Ryder’s expression was unreadable for a single heartbeat. Then it shifted into something tighter, almost startled, the look of a man who hadn’t expected the door to open. Worry sat clear in his eyes for a second before he could lock it down.

I stepped back so fast the door frame caught my shoulder. I pulled the door shut before either of them could speak, before the image could become anything more than the single frozen second already locked behind my eyes.

I walked. The corridor felt too narrow. My vision blurred at the edges.

Was Julian on his knees for Ryder?

Did I just walk in on an intimate moment between them?

Was that what it looked like?

The questions kept coming, one after another, sharp and stupid and impossible to stop. Why had Ryder looked at me like that? That flash of worry, like he had been caught. Had he wanted me to see, or had I walked in on something he never meant for me to find? Was that what the distance had been building toward the whole time — the almosts, the way he had started looking at me like he was waiting for something to break?

I kept moving until I found the bathroom, shoved into an empty stall, and locked it. My back hit the wall. I pressed the heels of both hands hard against my eyes and stayed there, breathing too fast, the picture of Julian on his knees in front of Ryder replaying without mercy. Tears slipped past my wrists anyway. I didn’t try to stop them.

Something had shifted past the point of pretending it had not.

────────────────Episode 29 | The Men In My Barracks 🪖